Strikes latest: 'I'm a university lecturer on less than £13k a year' - workers tell their stories (2023)

Thanks for following along with Sky News on the busiest strike day for more than a decade in the UK.

At least half a million people walked out on Wednesday, with teachers, rail workers and civil servants involved.

We'll be back shortly with more cost of living news.

The government's 2% pay offer to civil servants has been described as a "slap in the face" by a worker for the police watchdog.

Speaking anonymously, the Independent Office for Police Conduct civil servant said: "It is important for all of us to support those on the lowest salaries.

"If you had said 12 years ago that we would be in this state, no-one would have believed you.

"This (2% offer) has been the straw that broke the camel's back.

"If you work for a smaller agency, or one which is less visible to the public, it is easier to offer miserly pay rises than if you are slightly more public-facing like a nurse or a train driver.

"Two per cent is just a slap in the face."

Meanwhile, a 34-year-old who works for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said it was clear the government thought they would "just take" the pay rise.

He said: "We got the lowest pay rise in the public sector because they thought they could just do this to us and we would just take it.

"I believe more people will come out. So many people who had not been part of unions before and had not been striking before are stepping out and being open about striking."

Civil servants make up thousands of the half a million people on strike today, alongside large numbers of teachers and rail workers.

Mick Lynch has told teachers "we are the working class, and we are back" during an NEU rally in Westminster today.

The RMT general secretary addressed thousands of striking teachers gathered outside Downing Street.

"Welcome to Westminster, the house of fools and the house of the corrupt," he said.

"Last year, Grant Shapps, remember him? He's still around. Lurking around all of these buildings here, running the government, telling Rishi Sunak what to do, trying to ban the working class."

He added that his message then is the same as it is today: every worker needs a pay rise, every worker needs a square deal.

"And our message is sod this, we demand, and we are united. We will not be divided on the basis of who we work for. We will not be divided on the basis of our belief, or the colour of our skin, or the part of the country we are from.

"We are the working class, and we are back. We are here, we are demanding change, we refuse to be bought, and we are going to win for our people on our terms."

Less than half of schools in England were fully open as teachers walked out on strike on Wednesday, data from the Department for Education has shown.

The government said it had received attendance data from 16,400 state-funded schools in England. This is around 77% of the total number.

Of these, the Department for Education said:

• 43.9% were estimated to be fully open;
• 42.8% were open but with restricted attendance;
• 8.9% were closed;
• The status of 4.4% was unknown.

South Western Railway has told passengers it intended to run a full service on its mainline network today, but there was disruption due to drivers not crossing picket lines.

The operator said: "While our drivers are not on strike, some drivers are refusing to cross picket lines in support of our depot drivers who are taking industrial action today."

It added there may be "short notice cancellations, delays and alterations to services on all routes".

Analysis of train performance website Trains.im showed 7.6% of services were either cancelled or more than half an hour late up to 2pm on Wednesday.

The figure for the entire day on Tuesday was 0.4%.

The National Education Union has thanked London Mayor Sadiq Khan for his "strong support" for its strikes and its members.

Mr Khan, a member of the Labour Party, said he recognises that its members have been "forced to stand up for yourselves and your pupils because this government has consistently let you down".

He adds that there is "no disputing you're overworded and underpaid", and that it's "wrong that our children are paying the price for more than a decade of Tory failure and incompetence".

You can read his message of support in full below...

Our correspondent Matt Thompson was outside the London Enterprise Academy in the east of the capital today as thousands of teachers walked out.

One woman told him that the industrial action has clearly affected both parents and children.

She said: "I think its affected parents and the children as well. The parents are working, so its hard to find someone on that day to look after their children for a certain time.

"As a parent, I think teachers should get paid more because they are really doing very hard work and a noble job for us."

The education secretary must "step up with concrete and meaningful proposals" on teachers' pay to prevent further strikes, union leaders have said.

The National Education Union (NEU) estimated that around 85% of schools in England and Wales would be affected by teacher walkouts today.

Dr Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney, joint general secretaries of the NEU, said: "This is no cause for celebration, but an indication of the level of anger among our members.

"It is a huge statement from a determined membership who smashed through the government's thresholds that were only ever designed to prevent strike action happening at all.

"Today, we put the Education Secretary on notice. She has until our next strike day for England, February 28, to change her stance."

The union leaders warned: "However, be in no doubt that our members will do whatever it takes to stand up for education, including further strike action, if Gillian Keegan still fails to step up with concrete and meaningful proposals."

Today will go down as the biggest day of industrial action in a decade as half a million workers strike in bitter disputes over pay, jobs and conditions.

Teachers, train drivers, civil servants, university lecturers, bus drivers and security guards are all involved in the disputes. The government is continuing to push through its contentious plans for a new law on minimum service levels during strikes.

On the Sky News Daily, Niall Paterson is joined by business correspondent Paul Kelso to look at the economic impact of the action - and political correspondent Ali Fortescue explores the pressure it's putting on the government.

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